David Lock

HMG now seem to be a acting like that old joke – “I used to be indecisive but now I’m not so sure”

But what do you think? Should we go ahead with Hinckley or rely on renewables and gas for the foreseeable future?

I missed the nuclear engineering lecture at college but would like to know why it is going to cost so much, anyone with knowledge of this?

I do believe that there is huge wastage of electricity and so much more could be done to reduce this. Drive through any large town late at night and many of the buildings will have lights left on with no one about. On the other hand road transport will consume more electricity as we move away from petrol and diesel engines to electric or hydrogen power. And renewables are not the complete answer especially with no wind/no sun conditions. I think more could be made from tidal power perhaps combining tidal sites into recreational areas or even fish farms.

Thoughts please.


David

dpb

Clearly a bit of everything is what's required . I find it but bizarre that we have been buying power off the french who use nuclear, but Greenpeace press ever more for us not have it here. Just wind farms and wave power ( for the whole countries req)

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

Hinkley needs to happen. renewables & gas do not produce enough energy for our needs.


The trouble is, on paper the Hinkley C project will bankrupt French power company EDF. It really is that expensive and that tight. All other power companies are holding fire on other projects to see how this turns out first.


We should have been building this 20 years ago. It's far too late.

wayne9t9

Has to be done, a bloke on the news said if we don`t all the lights are going to go out

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

I've worked in the power industry for the last 19 years and things have been on the decline since I started. Government have made no decision or investment in the future for too long which will now cause us issues going forward. This has been on the cards for a long time.

Paben

iTrader: (5)

I suspect that it's the Chinese investment in this project that's giving the Government pause for thought. We are trying to get away from non UK power sources to avoid being cut off on a foreign polical whim, yet the Chinese could halt the funding for Hinkley at any time, and we'd be in the mire.

hodgy0_2

as BPR as alluded to the fault lies with our Politicians complete lack of investment in our infrastructure over the last few years

the have simply abdicated responsibility to "the markets"

look what happens when you leave our Broadband infrastructure to BT - we have the lowest penetration of super fast broadband in the developed world

unfortunately some things the government needs to take the lead on

we see the same in HS2, Heathrow/Gatwick 3rd runway decision

they are all too **** scared of upsetting the various competing business interests / voters

so we have complete national drift

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

From what little I know of this project, it needs to be abandoned or handed over to full British committment. Sure it's expensive but so is Trident, and we wouldn't want a creaking, debt ridden French company, or the Chinese government financing that for us - would we?
What happens half way down the line if EDF get further into financial difficulties and cannot complete the project? (This is important because it actually belongs to them). Or we decide we're going to play Billy Big Bollox with the Chinese over their support for North Korean aggression?
I'm not averse to nuclear power, but it seems fantastically expensive in terms of project completion costs and end product cost for a small contribution to the UK's power demands when the revenue will mostly be leaving these shores, there has to be a better way of seeing this through to completion without leaving us open to being held to some kind of political or economic ransom by foreign powers, regardless of who they might be.
There are obvious tangible benefits to having this power facility available, such as a reported 25,000 jobs, extra security in our ability to provide our own power, etc. There are also potential problems in the future such as waste disposal. But these aspects exist whther or not we kow-tow to a foreign financier.
I really don't understand the reason why we can fund the renewal of a nuclear deterrant and yet we can't provide our own power source for the national benefit.
The costs of each, as reported at the moment and subject to change, seem to be about the same. I'm fairly sure we have the ability and technology to build Hinkley. So what exactly are we scared of?
I think the Government are right to re-consider this contract with its political and economic ramifications, and if they are as they suggest committed to an independant Britain, they should fully fund the project.

hodgy0_2

well the people I have heard (Radio / Papers) say exactly the opposite and the problem is we don't have those engineering / manufacturing skills any more

because we don't do that stuff

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

Fair enough that may be the case, although personally I sincerely doubt it, but that doesn't mean we have to sell out lock, stock, and barrel. We could pay for the expertise and skills if we were that badly off without giving ownership away.

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

We do still have the engineers & skills to do this. In fact our skilled engineers are currently doing projects exactly like this around the world now as there is just no investment in our own country. I have been supplying equipment to UAE for their 1st ever nuclear power station currently being built. My equipment and systems designs are being installed in 4 turbines worth of equipment at the power station as I type this.


Over the last 19 years in this industry I've watched sadly as our whole business has HAD to focus on business abroad to survive and keep us employed (only just), due to the lack of investment in our own infrastructure by our LEADERS. This market gets overlooked and ignored year on year because nobody wants to make a political decision that looks bad for their party.

David Lock

Does this experience give any idea as to whether Hinckley is costing way over the odds or is that rough comparisons cannot be made?


David

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

Not personally, but some of my family friends actually work directly for the UKAEA and areas like this that have been involved in the project planning and tendering stage of this process with Hinkley. It's mind blowing the amount of money that has already been spent by EDF just getting to this point to be honest, before work even starts. As with all major contracts, with all the best will and planning possible it's widely accepted that Hinkley C will run over time and over budget by some way. This has been the concern by EDF as it's an unknown quantity.


Gone are the days when our good old CEGB used to run these projects and our own government used to invest in our infrastructure. Sad times.

lunar tick

iTrader: (2)

This is an absolutely perfect summary of why we are where we are

BlkKnight

Listening to some chap on radio the other week. he simply pointed out that it isn't cost effective to produce one gigantic plant.

It is far better to build 6 or 7 smaller units (which could be practically factory manufactured), and position them nearer the point of ultimate use.

The smaller units can be phased in when they are needed and have a much smaller lead-time, and due to this will decommission over time - rather than giving us a big problem in 35 years time.

Being "off the shelf" almost they are much cheaper.

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

You can't make small nuclear power stations.

neil-h

Is that not what the 'S' in 'SMR' is?

Out of curiosity BPR, who do you work for?

BlkKnight

Not the clever it, but the concrete sections and structures can be pre-fab.

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

They can't in the nuclear industry trust me. Even a concrete wall is MASSIVELY over engineered in this world. It took us 6 months to gain permission to drill 1 hole in a concrete wall to mount 1 sensor in a nuclear dockyard. Nuclear Power Stations are very much the same with red tape and over-engineered solutions.


I work for a company that make monitoring solutions Neil. We design & build our own sensors & systems for industry like this and provide protection systems and critical shutdown systems for rotating plant, motors, pumps, turbines etc. High integrity systems. We also have seismic sensors and systems of our own design and build monitoring the refuelling cranes in the reactor buildings in all UK power stations for shutdown in a seismic event and analysis of post event.


I'm the Engineering Manager responsible for every single product and design that goes through our business. I've also worked as a sales engineer in my time dealing directly with the stations & engineers throughout the UK.

David Lock

On the face of it this would seem a far more practical and affordable option. In longer term perhaps two in England (North & South) with one each in Scotland, Wales and NI). Spreads the work around as well.


Safety aside what are the downsides? And this stops visiting birds being decapitated by sea located wind turbines.


David

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

So you know a thing or two about it then?

c_maguire

He seems to know a thing or two.

Either way, whatever Nuclear Power Station they do go ahead with, they need to get on with it. They're 20 years behind schedule already.

And much the same with H'Row. I wish they'd stop pis@ing about with that as well.

And sack in HS2. That's a waste of money.

boomer

What i can't understand is that a few years ago, after the Fukushima mess, Germany decided to abandon its nuclear power industry. So why can't we just offer jobs to all those German boffins and get them to buld a load of power nukes for us (and as a bonus, there are probably loads of parts going cheap n'all)?

mb

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

Completely agree with everything said above. Especially the 1st line!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

The other day I was a bit bored and intrigued; Realising that the EU wanted us to shut all our coal/fossil fuel stations that didn't conform - basically all of them, except the odd one...even Ironbridge shut last year despite being converted to biomass...that's another 1000MW gone.

So we're losing more power stations and more importantly generation capacity than we are building. When will we run out of power?

Knowing the national grid had plenty of redundancy built into it thanks to many years of investment before privatisation so new stations came online as older ones were decommissioned along with spare capacity to handle planned and unplanned downtime.

It seems this margin of over-capacity has eroded as time has passed. Only offset by a reduction in electricity requirement when our heavy industry shut down and eco7 storage heating got replaced with gas. But as our population increases our demand has increased again. And as we move to more electrification be it cars, trains, heat pumps, swapping LPS/sox lamps for HPS etc. we need more again.

Well, turns out the margin is tighter than I thought...In early 2009 during a cold spell our usage peaked at 58.8GW (gigawatts ). As of 2015 UK our generation capacity is 71.879GW and falling our only back up is France/Holland/Ireland which think is around 10GW. Whilst we average 40GW it's fine but should we ever hit these 60GW peaks again with less capacity and we suffer a unplanned shutdown the possibility of demand outstripping supply has been closer than ever.

We need more power stations. We need to replace what we closed and demolished. We've wasted 15 odd years ***** footing around with intermittent renewables as a replacement for consistent/on demand generators when they should have been treated as a addition.


Oh and Hinkley...will only meet 7% of our required needs. Surely it needs be double that capacity (14%) to be worthwhile ?

Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...pter_5_web.pdf

http://www2.nationalgrid.com/UK/Indu...Data-explorer/

BrownPantsRacing

iTrader: (6)

Well said.

neil-h

At the end of the day you don't want all your eggs in one basket, better to have several smaller stations (with different generation methods) than one big one. Hence why other potential new builds (such as Wylfa B) are important.

Blue by You

iTrader: (23)

I think it's essential that Hinkley should go ahead, just not in the hands of foreign powers. It's not a question of misguided 'jingoism' and to hell with Johhny Foriegner, but we need to have faith in our own ability to perform in the global market we have now fully committed to.
I can't believe we don't have the financial clout to fully fund this project, but even if we don't that's not a good enough reason to hand over control and possesion to offshore powers that ultimately wouldn't have our best interests at heart.
As for the supposedly absent skills and technology, that's already been covered by BPR.
I look at it like this, I don't have the money or skills necessary to build a house. But I can borrow the money, and I can pay Bob the builder to build it.
But when the job's finished, you wouldn't expect Bob to have his name on the title deeds because he built it!

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

If it wasn't Nuclear, I'd agree: more stations of different types in more places. But what we have offered is Hinkley or nothing and with the long term consequences of nuclear I feel it's best to minimise and concentrate them. I was thinking have more than just two reactor plants on the same site; whilst they have permission (or not) they may as well fully exploit it. One reactor can go down but others remain operable, for example, Chernoblyl's remaining intact reactors still generated power up until the year 2000. Obviously more consideration needs to given to mitigate a domino or chain failure of more than one reactor (or grid infrastructure to it) in a catastrophic event, but this still needs to be done when running two reactors on the same site so they still have to allow for redundant reliability anyway.

Wylfa B needs to happen as well- what point is there having a nuclear facility if it doesn't have an active reactor?

With the loss of coal and oil for electricity generation, nuclear or intermittent renewable cannot replace them all. I think we need to look more towards systems that can reliably and predictably supply power on demand without relying on gas.

Of course we do have Brexit to consider...it maybe we can bin or amend the regulations that forced many power stations to close. A limited reprieve and recommissioning of existing power stations until we can properly replace them.

ALi-B

iTrader: (1)

It's quite possible that the project has stalled because of this...just whose nuclear plant is it? Be it now or in the future....

The conspiracy theorist in me suspects that with the costs involved and EDFs current financial affairs-having had bailout money from the French government, I have to question are they going to complete this project? The Chinese involvement compounds this...if EDF fails who owns the Hinkley C project? What if the French government call time on their bail out and sell their share? What if the Chinese buyout EDF? Or what if the Chinese pull out? If it all collapses who foots the bill to finish it? Will the UK government end up bailing it out....

And the proper conspiracy...is the Hinkley C project geared to intentionally fail or run out of money to force the government (French or British) to bail it out? Leading it back to the original question of whose power plant is it?